SOCIAL WORK

METHOD
What is Social Work?
• ?? Why do you
want to be a
social worker?
• !!
Baby-snatcher!
 Social Work
❑ any social workers provide direct services to
clients helping them cope, manage, and
overcome problems such as poverty, abuse,
addiction, and mental illness by providing
counseling, connecting clients with needed
resources, and empowering clients to create
change in their own lives.
 Social Work .........
❑ A dynamic and unique helping
profession rich with meaning, action,
and the power to make a difference for
individuals, families, groups and
communities.
❑ The primary goal of social work is to
improve a society’s overall well-being,
especially for the most vulnerable
populations.
 Social Work
❑ The primary mission of the social work
profession is to enhance human well-being
and help meet the basic human needs of all
people, with particular attention to the needs
and empowerment of people who are
vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty." -
NASW Mission Statement
 Social Work .........

SCIENCE ART
GENERALIST
PRACTICE
SOCIAL WORK
5 AGREED UPON DIMENSIONS:

1. Importance of multiple level interventions

• Individuals ---- micro
• Families ---- micro/mezzo
• Groups --- mezzo
• Organizations --- mezzo/macro
• Communities --- macro
*Each is viewed as a system within
its environment

micro

mezzo
macro
5 AGREED UPON DIMENSIONS:

2. Practitioners use a problem-solving, planned- change approach to

resolve issues encountered by any of these systems.

• Generalist Intervention
Engagement
Model (GIM)
Assessment

Planning

Implementation

Evaluation

Termination

Follow-up
5 AGREED UPON DIMENSIONS:

3. Ethical principles and social work values.

*Include a focus on private issues of human well-being, social and economic justice,
and appreciation of human diversity.
5 AGREED UPON DIMENSIONS:

4. Practitioners assume a wide range of roles:

• Counselor Educator
• Broker Case Manager
• Mobilizer Mediator
• Facilitator Integrator/Coordinator
• Manager Initiator
• Negotiator Spokesperson
• Organizer Consultant
• Advocate
 5 AGREED UPON DIMENSIONS:
5. Generalist social workers must have infinite flexibility, a solid knowledge-base about
many things, and a wide range of skills at their disposal:

- Select effective strategies

- Evaluate results of practice
- Professional competence

Knowledge base chosen from a range of theories:

- Systems
- Ecological
- Structural functionalism
- Role theory
- Psycho-dynamic
- Learning Theory
- Erickson’s Psychosocial Development
- many more
GENERALIST PRACTICE DEFINITION

• Generalist Practice is the application of an

eclectic knowledge-base, professional
values, and a wide range of skills to target
systems of any size for planned change
within the context of three primary
principles, a context, and four major
processes
Generalist social work practice requires
the worker both to be able to explain
human behavior and to decide on a
course of intervention to improve social
functioning.

Since the generalist social worker must

work with the micro, mezzo, and macro
systems, it is important the each new
social worker be grounded in the
traditional social work methods
 Organizational structure
Supervisio Cultural competency
n YOU
AS GP
1.Knowledg
e
2. Values
3. Skills

Processes Application

Assuming a Principles/Values
wide range of
Emphasizing client empowerment
roles
Human Diversity
Using critical Advocacy/Social and Economic
thinking Justice
Following a
planned-chang
e process
TARGET SYSTEM
Macro System
Mezzo
System
Micro
Syste
m
GENERALIST PRACTICE SOCIAL WORK

• Generalist practice is the critical

application of an eclectic knowledge base,
professional values, and a wide range of
culturally competent skills to a
planned-changed process at any system
level.
 GENERALIST INTERVENTION MODEL
Engagement
• Substantively and effectively prepare for action
• Use empathy and other interpersonal skills Engagement
• Develop a mutually agreed-on focus of work
and desired outcomes Assessment
Assessment
• Collect, organize, and interpret client data Planning
• Assess client strengths and limitations
Intervention Implementation
• Develop mutually agreed-on intervention goals
and objectives
Evaluation
• Select appropriate intervention strategies
• Initiate actions to achieve organizational goals
• Implement prevention interventions that enhance client
Termination
capacities
• Help clients resolve problems
Follow-up
Evaluation
• Negotiate, mediate, and advocate for clients
SYSTEMS THEORY
 DEFINITION OF SYSTEMS
THEORY
• System – a set of elements that are orderly and interrelated to make a
functional whole.
• Systems theory:
• Targets multiple systems of different size
• Focus on boundaries WITHIN a system
System Dynamic

Interact Homeostasis (equilibrium)

Input Output
ECOLOGICAL THEORY

• Refers only to living dynamic interactions

• Focuses on transactions BETWEEN the
individual and environment at the interface
point.
Social Environment Person in Environment
Energy (input/output) Interface
Adaptation Coping
Interdepedence
 1. MICROSYSTEMS

✔ consist of individual or interpersonal features and those

aspects of groups that comprise the social
identity (Gregson, 2001) which may include roles that a
person plays (i.e. mother, father, sister, brother, child,
etc.) or characteristics they have in common.
✔ These interpersonal attributes are strong as to how an
individual perceives oneself.
✔ In the interpersonal sphere, there are also many
components of the individual,
including psychological and cognitive actors, like
personality, knowledge, beliefs (Gregson, 2001).
✔ The individual in his or her own micro system is
constantly shaped, not only by the environment, but by
any encounter or other individual they come in contact
with.
2. EXOSYSTEMS

✔ Refer to the community level influence, including fairly

established norms, standards, and social
networks (Gregson, 2001). There will likely be many
organizations and interpersonal relationships that compose
the community, and this web of organizations and
relationships creates the community.
✔ Example could be membership in special interest groups or
political affiliations.
✔ Are essentially any setting which affects the individual,
although the individual is not required to be an active
participant (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).
4. MACRO SYSTEMS

✔ Refer to cultural contexts (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), not solely

geographically or physically, but emotionally and ideologically. These
influences are more easily seen than the other factors, mainly due to the
magnitude of the impact.
✔ Examples of significant intercultural effects include communism, military,
Islam, Christianity .
PERSON –IN- ENVIRONMENT
PERSPECTIVE
PERSON-IN-ENVIRONMENT

•Social Work seeks to recognize both the

client (person), their environment, and the
interaction between them. Coined by
Florence Hollis (1964)
Person-In-Environment (PIE) or "the person-in-the
situation" stresses a person's physical, social, and
psychological realities as well as the social
realities that both define and limit that person.

Social Workers seek to examine both the

personal, and the social aspects of all 'Problems'
be they social problems, or personal ones. Most
intervention happens at the individual level, with
system approaches to problem solving seek
mainly to improve individual functioning
THE CONCEPT OF PIE

Socio-cultural Groups

Ethic Secondary Group

groups,
societal Parts of his/her
orders interest school,
work place

Influences in
his life like
family,
Limitation Strength
friends,
work group
PERSON-IN-ENVIRONMENT/SITUATION

Configural approach views the PERSON at the center of his/her various

situation and environments, each interacting with the others
Various environment of the PERSON:
1. Primary groups- currently most important to and have the greatest
influence over PERSON’S life (ex. Family, friends, work groups)
2. Secondary groups- have specialized claims on certain parts of the
PERSON’s interests and labors (ex. School system, neighborhood,
workplace)
3. Socio-cultural contexts-ethnics heritage and the societal order in
which the PERSON lives.
4. Physical environment and historical age-actual setting and time
wherein the PERSON functions.
DUAL FOCUS OF SOCIAL FUNCTIONING

• The PERSON is not separate from the environment.

• Duality of social functioning:
1. PIE-person in environment
2. Interactions/transactions between person and environment
DUAL FOCUS OF SOCIAL FUNCTIONING

The concern for the person’s environment:

1. Immediate environment (family, close friends, neighborhood,
school, and the services and programs s/he uses)
2. Distant environment (social values, human rights, political and
economic structures)
DUAL FOCUS OF SOCIAL FUN
Key ideas
general community The Social Environment of the PERSON
Media
Political system The sustaining environment
Economic resources
The nurturing environment
Education system
Social welfare institution
Larger Person

Immediate Family
Extended family
Friends
neighbors
 THE PERSON AS A BIO-PSYCH-SOCIAL AND
SPIRITUAL BEING
Key idea
The PERSON is a total being made up of several aspects:
• Biological- supports the biological integrity and functioning of the
PERSON
• Psychological-supports the PERSON’s ability to mobilize his0her
internal and external and external threats
• Social-systems within which a PERSON lives, relates, and is
influenced
• Spiritual-activities related to the PERSON’S search for meanings to
life and existence
The person as a bio psychosocial-spiritual being
Biological Aspect Psychological Aspects

All systems that support the All mental functions that

biological integrity and affect the individual’s
functioning of the ability to mobilize
individual. resources to satisfy
personal needs and avoid
threats.

Social Aspects Spiritual Aspects

All social systems within All activities related to the

which the individual individual’s search for
lives, relates, and is meanings to life and
influenced. existence